Inverness - If it takes years to get a jail, how long for a new hospital?
A markedly buoyant update on progress towards building a new prison in Inverness has been delivered by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). Its completion by 2026 is now said to be "realistic".
How many updates have emerged in the decade and more since this saga first began? Since the first intentions to build this jail emerged new lifers across Scotland will have been paroled and are back round their family dinner tables. Multiple occupants of Porterfield will have been churned through the system and come and gone. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but nothing has crawled along at the barely perceptible pace of any progress towards a new Inverness prison.
• HMP Highland in Inverness will ‘absolutely’ be completed by 2026, says project manager
It barely seems relevant to recall that the "state-of-the-art" new jail plan in an artist's impression which made it look like a stylishly contoured holiday camp was supposed to cost £50 million. The bill around 14 years on will be over £200 million. What can possibly explain the difference? Maybe the original version wasn't considered quite stylish enough.
What's being said by those now in charge of what began as a controversial project and now looks more like an abysmally outstanding farce?
We are told as one prime achievement that the new jail will be a "net zero" prison. Those who eventually end up in it will have committed very serious crimes and in some cases ruined lives. But at least they're not polluting the environment and adding to their carbon footprint. Three cheers for that.
A spokeswoman for the SPS said: "It's absolutely going to be a community legacy, and we will be able to bring more people so they can keep in contact with family and friends."
It's a jail and no one apart from those responsible for building it cares if it's a "community legacy" or not. This utterly peculiar view of the requirements for it - state-of-the-art, net zero, a landmark legacy - is no doubt at least partly responsible for the ludicrous delay in getting it built.
As for the cheery view that it'll be nice for inmates to keep in close contact with family and friends, well yes, I suppose so, to an extent, but they shouldn't have committed crimes - and these have to be pretty serious to get locked up nowadays - requiring their separation from family and friends in the first place.
I've been following this affair since those stylish artist's drawing were first released, and in that time have advanced considerably in years. And the aches and pains and worse that come along with that makes me think about another structure rather more important than a city jail.
The widespread consensus is that Raigmore Hospital can no longer cope adequately with the huge pressures placed on it. There have already been demands from politicians for consideration to be given to building a new hospital. With one in four of the region's population over the age of 65 these are certainly not misplaced.
But then I look at this never-ending prison saga.
It takes the Scottish Government at least 14 years to provide us with a new jail to house a bunch of criminals.
So how long in the name of heaven could we have to wait for the infinitely more complex creation of a new, expanded and modernised main Highland hospital?
